Surprise!! It's the first day of school!

I thought I had another week until the summer quarter began, but I was wrong.  I realized I was wrong when I received an e-mail reminding me that payments were due today.  Uh...crap.
No worries on the money, though.  I do a payment system, so I don't need to pay until July. 
On the other hand, I wasn't prepared to start reading for class and figuring out all my online stuff.  This class is all done online, with the lectures (videos, thank goodness) and handouts, message boards, exams, etc all done on a website.  So, I had to go through a boring orientation-type thing, which mostly told me things I could have figured out on my own, but there were a few good points. 

So, I feel a little stressed today, but I think I'm mostly over it.  I was partially feeling scrambled, because it was, "Crap! How am I going to start reading for the C.S. Lewis class? How am I going to finish The UltraMind Solution before it's due in 3 days?  How am I going to spend time on ancestry.com before I have to pay again? AGH!"

Then I calmed myself. I poked around on the message boards and "met" the other people in my class, introduced myself, and then I went for a run.  I will remember that making time to work out always pays off.  After the run and a trip to get fruit & veggies, I am home & calm.  I've started reading for this class, and I'm already digging on it.  I also remind myself that everything doesn't have to be done TODAY.  If I keep with my 3 hours of homework per day regimen, I will be totally fine.  And I also get to read for fun when I budget well like that. 

My class is on issues of gender and sexuality that occur in ministry, and it seems like it's going to be great and right up my alley.  We'll be talking about things that I'm passionate about and that are relevant to my church experience, such as dealing with pastoral indiscretion. 

In the book by the professors, Authentic Human Sexuality, I'm only about 20 pages in (to the wrong edition, grrrr. and there is a difference), but I'm already impressed.  One of the first things they talk about is hermaphroditism and gender assignment at birth, and the need for a space for gender-neutral persons.  Wow.  Not what I expected, even though I go to a liberal school.  I guess I still expected the Christian writers to, I don't know, talk about people cursed by God that we need to pray for. 

Don't worry, I didn't order the wrong edition of the book (I hope).  It's just not here yet, so I'm reading the previews on Amazon & Google books. 

Hasta mañana.